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Rockbridge Radio Local, Music Focused
Rockbridge County residents have a new option for music, news, local shows and weather information. Rockbridge Radio, an online ratio station found at rockbridgeradio. com, launched in May.
Rockbridge Radio was started by Val Davis to serve Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County. It features five different music formats, including classic country, classic rock, alternative (The River), 50s and 60s (The Time Machine) and All American Radio, which is a mix of modern country and southern rock.
Listeners will also hear local weather forecasts, news headlines from The News-Gazette and interviews with local community leaders.
Rockbridge Radio has been broadcasting live from the local farmers markets, Christmas in July and from the Beer and Wine Festival.
Davis said he is looking for new shows to be hosted by local residents. He is currently working on a show about the environmental and climate impacts in the Rockbridge area. That show may be hosted by a local professor. In addition, Davis plans to air live game coverage from Parry McCluer and Rockbridge County high schools.
Davis has an extensive broadcast background. He taught college radio operations and radio production in Vermont and has more than 40 years in broadcast, including time with ABC Television and ABC Radio. Local residents may have heard his voice introducing Peter Jennings and World News Tonight.
Davis and his wife Dona came to the Lexington area to run the local First Media radio stations 3WZ and Big Dog Country. While there, he created local content, including a weekly show promoting local musicians and the Virginia Opry (“The Virginia Opry Backstage”) that featured local talent live on the radio. He also broadcast live music from The Natural Bridge Hotel.
Earlier this year, Davis left the radio station and decided to launch Rockbridge Radio.
Davis said, “Rockbridge Radio is 100% online. You can listen in your car via bluetooth from your phone.”
He also noted that the majority of younger folks are already listening primarily to their phones.
“One advantage of being online is that we aren’t affected by local power outages,” he said. “While the local stations go off the air whenever they lose power (either at the station or at the transmitter site), we are always up and running because we are coming off a server in a computer center that has backup power. If you have a phone with service you can listen from anywhere.”
He also notes that his daughter listens in South Africa where she is in school.
Additionally, listeners can browse the music selection online and make “instant requests and dedications.” It’s all done via the website interface at RockbridgeRadio. com. These are automatically inserted into the playlist without needing a person (DJ) to approve or decline the requests. All requests get played automatically.
While traditional radio stations have to pay their bills by running ads, Rockbridge Radio is community supported through sponsorships. That means listeners won’t hear 15 or 20 minutes of commercials every hour.
While he has several local sponsors, Davis said he needs more “to keep the ball rolling.”
Davis also said he got tired of the nonsense morning bits like “favorite recipes or taco day.” He also didn’t like that for the majority of the day, the announcers were satellite-based and coming from other states, which means that the content is very generic as it is aired on stations all over the U.S.”
Instead Davis said he wanted to focus on the music and local information, stating “everything is local on Rockbridge Radio.”
